First Steps
by MaggieMay19
Summary: This story simply won't leave me alone. This is the sequel to 'Vanishing Ink'. What led Patrick Jane to appear at the CBI offices on that fateful day when he first met Agent Teresa Lisbon? [Apologies, there is horror in Ch 2, it's taken me weeks to tone it down but do please let me know if you feel it is still too strong for a T rating]
1. Chapter 1

Patrick Jane drove down from San Francisco to Palo Alto along El Camino Real as the rain slowed then dried up completely. The events of that morning had left him badly shaken. He'd returned to the UCSF Hangley Shorter hospital to erase all record of his stay there and although he had succeeded he had found it emotionally exhausting. It had taken almost an hour of hiding from the world in a stinking alley before his hands stopped shaking. At some point it had started raining and he had been cold and soaked through before he really noticed what was happening. He had decided against driving on the freeway while he was in this state, it would take longer to get there on the urban road but at least he could stop at any time if he needed. _It must be the meds,_ he thought,_ this must be what going cold turkey feels like. _He didn't like it much.

This should finally be the beginning of his new life. He'd spent the last three days cutting the remaining dangling threads of his old one, now he was completely free to begin his search for Red John. He would start by learning everything he could about the monster. He knew from the investigation into the murder of his little family that Red John featured in several text books, that various experts had written articles about him in medical journals. He needed access to a specialist library to find out everything they had written. Out of caution he'd chosen to go down to Stamford University rather than use the library at the Hangley Shorter. He didn't want to bump into anyone who might recognise him, no one could find out what he was up to. It had seemed like a good idea at the time but now it seemed to him paranoid and unnecessary. He'd used one of his old mentalism tricks to fool Dr. Miller into helping him erase his hospital records and he felt very guilty about doing it.

In the car he shook his head. _I have to be prepared to do anything – anything – to catch the monster. It will justify any means if he dies by my hand. _For a moment he felt like he really was prepared to do anything to achieve his goal, then it faded, his certainty tinged with doubt. It didn't feel like he was making a fresh start, he felt tired and old and alone. Finding and killing Red John seemed so remote at the moment, more like a pipe dream. The enormity of the task ahead was starting to hit home. Well, he might not be able to do anything right now about tired and old but there was no need to be alone. He'd spotted an old-fashioned diner ahead. _Cup of tea, pie. Comfort food. _He couldn't remember when he'd last eaten but he suspected it was yesterday morning. Was he hungry? He always felt gloomy when he was hungry.

"Cheer up, Honey, it might never happen." He'd settled down at the counter of the diner and this cheerful waitress had spoken to him as she handed over the menu. The place was nearly empty and she was more than he could have hoped for, a thoroughgoing chatterer, a real people person. He obliged by giving her his most charming smile in reply. She didn't blush, he noted. She had enough character not to be swayed by him turning on the charm and he thoroughly approved.

"That's better!" she said encouragingly, as she might to a surly teenager. "You ready to order yet?"

He'd been perusing the menu, but now he looked up and asked, "Which pie would you recommend?"

"I'm supposed to recommend the apricot, we got a lot of that left, but the apple pie's better." She said this last part in a stage whisper, giving him a conspiratorial wink as she said it.

"Apple pie it is then, and tea, English Breakfast if you have it."

"We have it. A la mode?"

"The pie, not the tea," he replied with another smile which caused much hilarity in the waitress. A moment after she bustled off he heard laughter coming from the kitchen – she must have repeated his lame joke to the cook.

He was the only person at the counter so he turned to look around at his fellow customers while he waited for his order, his age-old fascination with taking a snapshot of other people's lives rising unbidden over his fatigue to the forefront of his mind. A mom and her elementary-age son, their trip here had been the bribe that ensured his good behavior at his dentist appointment. Patrick smiled. The banana split he was gulping down would ensure he needed a return visit. Two middle-aged guys, they worked as building contractors but had finished very early that day. Probably there had been a hitch with the supply of some vital materials or equipment for their current job, he guessed their boss would be yelling down the phone at someone around now. The last person was hidden behind a laptop, impossible to see but he'd bet they were a salesperson for a tech firm down in Silicon Valley, they'd visited a customer in the area and were sending some emails before heading over to the freeway. The visit hadn't been a success: he could hear them angrily pounding the keyboard from here.

He did his cold readings almost on autopilot, aware he had no way of knowing he was right without invading the privacy of his fellow-customers but not bothering to stop himself. It was a skill he had honed all his life and it felt good to practise it. There was precious little about himself that felt good these days. Angry Salesperson turned out to be a woman wearing a cheap skirt suit and a scowl, she only left small change as a tip and didn't even look at the other customers as she left. The waitress returned with his order.

"There ya go, Hun. Tea without ice cream, pie a la mode." She chuckled again.

"Thank you," he replied. She glanced at the now-vacated booth, decided it wasn't worth clearing up yet for the sake of fifty cents and hung around behind the counter while he gratefully sipped his tea. It wasn't as good as Susan's tea yesterday but that was a dizzy height which Patrick himself rarely attained. This was a _good_ cup of tea, and he said so.

"Thank you. We try. Don't recall seeing you in here before?"

"I'm just passing through, from the big city down to do some research at Stamford."

"Oh, I just knew you was academic the moment you walked in the door," she grinned, telegraphing her coming joke. "You got that air of learning about you. I nearly went to Stamford, y'know. Only two things stopped me. I never had two cents to rub together, and I never passed a damn test my whole life!" Her excessive delight at her own well-worn witticism was infectious, Patrick couldn't stop himself from grinning back as much in relief as humor. His plan was working, he could feel his gloom lifting.

Patrick spent the next half hour sporadically chatting as the small number of customers at this time of the day came and went. He worked his way through both her repertoire of banter and the excellent pie, mingling with real people, behaving like a normal human being. He left a generous tip.

_I need to do this thing alone but without isolating myself,_ he thought as he exited the diner. He regarded the car, _his_ car, again gently moved by the sight of her. He stroked along her roof before opening her up, setting off again. She was a little awkward to drive as older cars sometimes were, he was still learning her quirks but the ride was as smooth and lovely as the car herself. Being behind this wheel soothed him almost as much as the tea and pie had done. As he tuned the radio to a local station he thought _I need to appreciate beautiful things, I need contact with good people every day. I'm still finding out what I am capable of. For the sake of my sanity I need to make sure that a murderer isn't all I am._


	2. Chapter 2

WARNING: this chapter contains graphic and implied violence.

Patrick checked into the motel in Palo Alto later that afternoon. The desk clerk had been blandly welcoming, the room acceptably clean, the bed surprisingly comfortable. Now he was alone in the apparently empty library surrounded by a maze of bookshelves. _I must be more tired than I thought,_ he mused, _I can't exactly remember the way back to the motel_. Suddenly he heard a noise, incongruously loud in the customary silence. It sounded like a struggle was taking place somewhere nearby. He decided to go and report it, turned back towards the stairs when he heard it again, this time closer and accompanied by a woman's voice calling in distress, curiously muffled. It seemed to be coming from his right. His first instinct was to run but his curiosity overruled it and instead he cautiously peered around a bookshelf.

A little way down the aisle between the shelves a red-haired woman was lying stripped to her pink underwear, bound hand and foot with thin black plastic zip ties. A man was sitting astride her, dressed all in black, his gloved left hand both covering her mouth and pinning her down as she whimpered in barely audible terror and supplication. As Patrick watched, unable even to breathe let alone run or call for help, the man stroked the flat side of a linoleum knife against her skin in a nauseating parody of affection. He angled the short, curved blade so the point was pricking against her belly, paused for a moment before making a slow rotating motion with his hand followed by a swift jerk of his arm. The man's obvious enjoyment of her agonised panic chilled Patrick to the core. He tried to close his eyes, turn his head, do anything other than have to watch and listen to this monstrous violation but his body betrayed him. He was as powerless to move as a storefront dummy.

The attacker deftly repeated his ritual, slicing and tearing at his victim again and again. Her stifled cries became fainter, her struggles weaker, blood slicking down her pale sides and pooling around her. Finally, almost as an afterthought, he silenced her with a slashing motion across her throat. As she died he released her mouth and her head lolled in Patrick's direction. No longer red-haired, the woman was now recognisably his beautiful Angela, pain and terror etched into her face, her dead eyes looking accusingly into his. The sight restored his voice, he screamed and couldn't stop. The victim had become Angela but Red John had no face at all…

Patrick woke to the sounds of his own screaming, lying across the motel bed fully clothed, trembling and drenched in sweat, his throat dry, his heart racing. He lay there panting, listening to the sounds of his breathing, a dog barking outside, the TV from a neighboring room. It was dark inside and out but he had no idea of the time, the alarm clock by the bed simply blinked '12:00' at him as he stared dazedly around. He hadn't intended to sleep after checking in that afternoon – but then he hadn't lain on a bed since his discharge from hospital. He couldn't remember waking up screaming since before his breakdown. Some distant, analytical part of his mind dredged up the word _meds_ for his consideration.

After a few moments his pulse had slowed enough that he no longer felt like he was having a heart attack. _Jesus fucking Christ, _he thought, and though he was still shaking he pushed himself up, shrugged off his jacket. The leaflet in his now-empty box of antidepressants had warned of 'possible increase in symptoms of anxiety' when he stopped taking them but he hadn't been prepared for this._ Never again. No more doctors. No more damn pills. _His legs held his weight so he stumbled to the bathroom, ran the tap, splashed cool water onto his face. He braced his hands on the counter top, breathing deeply, willing his heart to slow further as the vivid images from his dream receded. The sense of horror lingered, the emotion of the dream still much more real than his surroundings. He raised his head, looked at himself in the mirror. His face was more gaunt than he remembered, very pale, horror and shock still clearly showing in his eyes. _I deserve nightmares,_ he told himself bleakly_. It's my fault. Of course I should feel the horror of what I unleashed on Angela and Charlotte._

Whatever it was inside him that had restored his sanity in the hospital, the thing that had grown stronger on his visit to his house in Malibu, now appeared in his eyes as he regarded himself steadily. He hadn't been able to bear looking at himself in a mirror for any length of time until now. _I am terrified but I am still alive. Nightmares will not destroy me._The thought crept over him again, as it had two days ago, _if I can bear this then I can and will do what I must to end this. End him._ His guilt at tricking Dr. Miller, the doubts and fears from earlier that day evaporated under his steady gaze. _It hurts but I can bear it. This… darkness… eats up nightmares for breakfast. _It was true, his dream had been horrifying but he knew it had strengthened his need for revenge rather than weakening it. Fears could be overcome – who understood that better than he?

He gazed into his own eyes, nodding slightly, acknowledging for the first time the chilly ruthlessness that he saw there now as if greeting a new comrade-in-arms. _There you are. I wonder if Dr. Miller ever saw you in there? _She had been very astute after all, good at seeing what was hidden. She never asked him about it, though, and she'd asked him about everything else. She had also discharged him from the hospital. Maybe she hadn't seen it. Maybe it wasn't so clear, unless you knew what to look for. _In any case I need to keep you very secret, _he thought. He tried smiling and was shocked at how fake it looked. No wonder the waitress at the diner had been unimpressed!

On a whim he pictured his car, imagined her as he had first seen her, battered but unbowed, then this morning – yesterday? – when he had been so enraptured by her transformation, her delicate curves sparkling in the sunshine. He posted another smile onto his face and this time was surprised how genuine it looked, even to him. He used to be good at faking sincerity but it had been a while, certainly he hadn't expected it to be so easy to pick up again. His mind wandered back to the cheerful waitress from earlier that day but his smile for her still seemed false as he dispassionately examined it. _Picturing my car works well, for now. I'll find other things that make me smile, other ways to hide you, my scary new friend._

He turned away from the mirror, his limbs still trembling with the aftershocks of the nightmare, to slowly strip for a shower. His inner certainty was a stark contrast to his body's still-trembling weakness. _Scary, _he thought. _Yes, this__ is who I am now. I am scarier than Red John. There's no foe more frightening than a man with nothing left to lose._

The hot water and citrus scent of the soap helped wash away the horror and fear. As it did so he imagined, could almost sense the darkness inside yawn and stretch its limbs as though waking from a restful sleep, bare its teeth, unsheathe its claws, sniff the air. _Just wait, _he thought. _Before this ends that monster will have nightmares about me._


	3. Chapter 3

After a sleepless few hours Patrick Jane had left his motel room the moment the pre-dawn light started filtering through the curtains. He then spent a couple of hours exploring the neighborhood. He was a block away from a 24-hour gas station where he bought a road atlas of California, two blocks from the road into Stamford University. On the opposite side of El Camino, Palo Alto's little downtown area stretched into the distance. He explored the Stamford campus, familiarizing himself with the locations of the libraries, cameras and security staff outposts.

Eight o'clock found him outside the Zane Medical Library a little way down from the main entrance, away from the gaggle of early morning students who were waiting for the doors to open and from the door cameras. He hadn't expected this many students to be so keen, waited for them to disperse before entering. A helpful sign on a noticeboard near the entrance explained exactly which facilities were available to what kind of visitor: students got an access-all-facilities pass, casual visitors such as himself got to read the books so long as they never left the library. _Old school,_ he thought. _Slow but untraceable. I'm not going to find the address of his townhouse here, no need to rush things. _

The psychiatry section was up on the third floor. Patrick was vaguely relieved that the library looked nothing like his nightmare. He checked the back of four random textbooks with likely-sounding titles before he found the first mention of Red John in an index. He turned to the relevant pages, read them twice to make sure he hadn't missed anything then started making a list of other books and journals referenced in footnotes or the bibliography. Journals didn't seem to be stored here on the third floor so he stuck with the books for now. After half an hour he hunted down a dictionary of psychiatric terms then returned to his stack of books. After another hour he caved in, went down to the entrance and quietly liberated a pencil from the lost property box on the reception desk. He similarly acquired plenty of nearly-blank paper from the recycle bin next to the bank of printers and copiers before heading back up to the third floor.

By mid-afternoon the references were already mostly back to books he'd already read, information he already knew. The books of course described the general _modus operandi_ of Red John but were frustratingly light on precise details. Most of them speculated endlessly on how best to classify his suspected personality disorders based on his apparent behaviour at the scenes of his crimes. A few compared him to other killers. There didn't seem to be much a hunter could use to identify or locate Red John. Aside from Angela and Charlotte all the killings so far had taken place in Northern California, He'd checked off the locations in his road atlas and there was no obvious geographical pattern, each victim as carefully and apparently randomly selected as he'd expected from a killer who had never left his DNA or fingerprints at any crime scene. If Red John did live in Northern California then that narrowed it down from six billion on the planet to about thirteen million. Almost certainly a man – that took it down to six and a half million people. If that was where he lived. He could be driving through the state and merely choosing to hunt there.

It took another three hours to finally run out of references to fresh books. There might still be a book or two that mentioned Red John in passing but Patrick was confident he'd read everything significant, gleaned all he could from these texts. The world outside was beginning to darken when he decided to take a break before heading down to the basement to start working through the journals. He needed some air, some food and some human contact. _Maybe I can find somewhere to sit and watch the sunset,_ he mused, but no: when he left the library the sun had already set over the hills though the sky was still very light. He walked over to downtown Palo Alto and on a whim ducked into a bookshop, emerging a few minutes later with a paperback copy of Moby Dick.

Less than an hour later he was back at the library, heading down to the basement to search the journals. He felt much more alert than he would have expected after such a short break. It both was and wasn't like he'd taken a little cocaine: he didn't have the restlessness he associated with the drug but he did have that familiar sensation of his brain changing up into a higher gear. He hadn't even noticed he'd been taking things slowly until now – well maybe once or twice… _Those fucking antidepressants! I must have been thinking in slow motion for months! No wonder I had such a hard time at the Hangley Shorter yesterday! _He'd been off his meds a clear two days now, his hands had stopped shaking and now he was finally able to _think_. The information leaflet had said it could take weeks for the drug to finally clear his system so he wasn't going to hope this was the end but at last here was a good side-effect of stopping. He reviewed his mental list of the twenty-seven different journal articles that had been referenced in the text books while checking it against his written list. He couldn't stop the grin from spreading over his face as he pocketed both his pencil and written notes, then started hunting the journals down in the archives. After just twenty minutes he took a short trip to the third floor again, returning with the dictionary he'd used previously.

Deputy Vance Maure enjoyed working the 'University Buildings' round at the end of his shift. A big guy in his late fifties with a natural air of authority, he was regularly called on to deal with the rowdier student elements on campus after dark. This meant he saw his occasional library detail as a welcome quiet respite rather than numbing tedium. He had locked the main doors to the Zane Medical Library shortly after ten when he'd ushered out the last few students and librarians. Now he was following his customary route through the building before clocking off. The place was usually silent so the sound of pages being turned in the basement made him pause. It was not totally unheard-of for people to miss the half-hour warning alarm, that's why there was a patrol through the library after lock-up. He had occasionally found a desperate student with an impending deadline or an academic deep into their researches still inside after hours. When he found this guy there were journals and paper spread across four tables. He was writing, with his back to Maure.

"Library's closed, son, time to pack up your things. I'll escort you to the door."

At his words the man turned briefly, stretching his neck wearily. He wasn't a student, or was a very mature one. More likely doing some kind of research, though he also looked a bit old to be a research assistant.

"Hi, Deputy Maure. Is there any way I can persuade you to give me, uh, two more hours?" The man had glanced round the four tables as he said this, as though he was working out how long it would take for him to finish.

"Library's closed," Maure repeated. This guy was sharp, in spite of appearances. Maure's name was embroidered on his shirt, his rank on his sleeve but the man had barely glanced at him. He'd swear he'd never seen him before. There were professors who saw him every day who still didn't know his name. The guy looked round the tables again at all the journals strewn across them.

"How about half an hour to put these back?" Maure shook his head.

"Go get some sleep, you look like you need it. The library isn't going anywhere." There was a slightly desperate air about the guy that stirred a little compassion in Maure, made him add, "The cleaning crews have all left, no-one'll touch these so long as you're back first thing tomorrow. Library re-opens at eight. Go get your sleep, I know I want mine."

"Pulled a double, huh?" the man said as he pocketed the papers on which it looked like he'd just been doodling, picked up a paperback, took a last look round the tables. Maure chuckled.

"Mm hmm, and I'm back here in twelve hours."

"You're not opening up then?"

"Nope," Maure shook his head. "I'm on camera duty tomorrow."

"Ah. New boss," the man nodded, understandingly. Maure eyed the guy curiously as they continued up the stairs.

"Yes he is. Thinks we're too set in our ways to be effective, wants everyone to show him what they're good at. Well, he may have some good ideas, some of the boys could do with a good shaking, but he's messed the scheduling to hell and back. That's never good. Gets people riled up."

"Maybe that's what he wants? He hasn't riled you." Maure unlocked the door and held it open for the guy, smiling.

"Takes more than a few shift changes to rile me. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Deputy Maure." _Yes it does_, thought Patrick as he headed back to the motel, _I don't think I want to know what would rile you. _He'd been darkly unimpressed that the university had its own police force rather than just private security, it seemed so privileged in every sense of the word. However Maure had seemed like a good cop. He'd met his fair share of bad or at least mildly corruptible cops all his life, they formed a small part of the machinery of showbusiness that needed oiling occasionally. He'd also come across good cops, the ones who wouldn't take a bribe or who somehow managed to bring their humanity to the job as well as their training. They were always more of a puzzle than the others and though he'd never had a problem working around them he'd never really understood them. _It must be a vocational thing, like nurses or firemen. I wonder if they all start out like that, or are bad cops bad from the get-go?_ A sense of vocation wasn't something he understood, though now he came to think about it he had his own dark little vocation. The thought was odd but he wasn't in any fit state to analyze it. The Deputy was right, he was exhausted. He hadn't slept since his nightmare yesterday evening, he'd spent the rest of the night watching TV and trying not to think about Angela. He wearily unlocked the door to his room.


	4. Chapter 4

Patrick Jane sat in the mid-afternoon sunshine on his spread-out jacket under a tree on the landscaped Stamford campus, absently playing with a quarter. It was tricky to find a place outside where the cameras couldn't see him, he'd settled for a spot where he judged that only his feet would appear in the frame. Last night he'd eventually slept for nearly five hours – excellent by his standards and mercifully dreamless – and had returned, reasonably refreshed, to the library when it opened that morning. He'd made sure he was thorough with the journal articles but they still weren't giving him the details he craved. He'd tracked down every article referenced in the textbooks, then all the articles referenced by other journals except one. Someone had somehow gained access to an FBI profile of Red John, they'd referred to it when making a particular point about Red John's exhibitionist tendencies, even thanked the FBI and a Supervisory Agent Marsham by name in the appendix. Patrick had mentally put a pin in that, the beginnings of an idea forming in his mind as he conscientiously finished going through the last eight journals on his list, just in case.

Three of these had been published very recently. All of them referred to the deaths of Angela and Charlotte. He hadn't read them at first, finishing the others before going back to them, finally skimming them just in case. No new details. That was when he'd come out here, picking up a sandwich and soda from a campus vending machine on the way. That was why he was playing with a coin. He was getting ready to put himself into a mild trance state, practicing really but also to calm himself after reading those last three articles. He had briefly considered trying to hypnotise Maure the previous night but had dismissed the thought immediately. He hadn't done anything like that for a year, he needed to get back in practice first, self-hypnosis was the most effective place to start. Playing with a coin was in itself relaxing, stopped him fidgeting, gave him something to focus on that wasn't Red John. The quarter span around in his fingers, rolling from index to pinkie and back.

Something pale crossed his field of vision. He looked up to find a tiny girl, blond, blue-eyed, watching him from a few feet away. The sight so matched his internal reverie it drew an involuntary gasp from him but this child was real and she wasn't Charlotte. She was too young, had straight hair with a heavy fringe, a different face. Patrick scanned the surrounding area but there was no sign of anyone nearby who might be with the child.

"Hello," he smiled.

"Gen!" was her only response, watching his hands, simple expectancy written across her face.

"Gen, a-gen!" Impatient now as he hesitated. Patrick span the coin there and back once more, while trying to look further afield for anyone who might be looking for her. Still no-one. The girl laughed then abruptly sat down, as though preparing to watch her own private magic show.

"I'm Patrick, what's your name?" he asked gently, but her only reply was "A-gen, a-gen!"

He moved the coin to his left hand, reached for his jacket pocket with his right as he rolled the coin around his fingers again, slightly slower with the wrong hand but nevertheless entertaining enough, as her renewed laughter indicated.

"Where's your mommy?" The question made the little girl look around briefly as if she was trying to spot her mom standing behind her. When she turned back she didn't seem upset that she couldn't see mommy anywhere, she just wore the same expectant look. He proceeded to do variations on the trick, rolling it one finger then two then three but this didn't produce a counting response in the girl._ Very young. What on earth is she doing here alone?_ All this time he was scribbling the letters M-A-U-R-E as thick and dark as he could, each letter filling one of the sheets of paper he'd extracted from his jacket.

"Please stay there? I'll be right back," he said to the girl as he held up a finger. Eyeing the tall post that held the nearest camera he stood and walked to roughly the center of its field of view, placed the sheets of paper on the ground and weighted them down with a few small stones. She turned to watch him do this but didn't get up, prepared to allow an interval in the performance but not an end to it. He returned to his jacket and started going through his full coin trick repertoire, slowly, first with his right hand and then his left. He paused after each trick to let her laugh, miming applause which she obediently copied, so the ten minutes it took for security to arrive passed quickly.

The afternoon then rapidly became eventful. He explained the little he knew to Deputy Hu of the Stamford DPS, the first responder. He re-told the story to a friend of the relieved mother, then to Deputy Garcia who had escorted the two women from the spot way across the campus where several young families had met up for a picnic earlier that day. He repeated it, much interrupted by her barely-coherent thank yous, to the Mom herself as she held the little girl tightly in her arms. Finally, escorted to the overcrowded office of the new Head of the Department of Public Safety, he told it to around half a dozen people including two dressed in suits and a Sherriff from Santa Clara County Police Department.

Patrick didn't understand exactly why the incident had escalated like this, why they were paying him so much attention. Did they suspect he had lured the girl away from her Mom for some reason? He'd been worried that she was lost but unwilling to approach her in case she screamed or ran – neither response would bode well for him or her. He thought using the camera to quietly attract Maure's attention while continuing to entertain the girl would reunite child and parent as quickly as possible without distressing the child or creating a fuss. Well it had reunited them quickly, the kid hadn't seemed distressed at all but here he was caught in the middle of apparently endless fuss.

In the crowded DPS office he explained why he had been sitting under the tree, what he had been doing with the coin (with a brief diversion into the history of therapeutic self-hypnosis), how he had known Maure was working camera surveillance, where he first saw the girl, why he had carried on with the coin tricks. Absurdly he even gave a short impromptu encore to his earlier performance, the solemn adult faces of his new audience a stark contrast to the little girl's delighted laughter and applause. He had felt reluctant to talk about exactly what he'd been doing on campus apart from calling it 'research' but no-one had asked, presumably anyone's research was way too esoteric to go into unless strictly relevant to an inquiry. Eventually Maure poked his head around the door and the boss left to have a quick word with him. When they both returned looking more relaxed Maure escorted Patrick out of the building.

"I seem to be doing this a lot recently," he remarked drily to Patrick.

"Did they think I took her? Is that what all this was about?" Maure shook his head.

"I didn't think you had but we needed to check CCTV footage. You were acting nervous."

"Nervous?"

"You keep tapping your face, moving your hands." Patrick realised he was fidgeting even now, rubbing the tips of the fingers of one hand against the edge of the other. He stopped at once, plunging his hands into his pockets.

"I guess I haven't slept much recently," he replied weakly. _I'm a mess! So much for not drawing attention to myself! I must be the most suspicious-looking guy on the campus!_

"Hey, there's no law against drinking too much coffee," said Maure with a smile. "It's just the new boss covering his ass. I checked the security footage, tracked her right across the campus. No-one took her. She just wandered off then kept on wandering. Wouldn't have believed she could get so far if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I could see you lying under that tree the whole time. Good idea, writing my name and putting it in front of the camera like that," he said approvingly. "Got my attention, and quick. You, uh, looked straight into the camera too. First clear footage we had of you since you left the library."

_Ah-ha! Though I wasn't exactly detained I still wasn't free to go until you confirmed all that,_ thought Patrick. _Avoiding the cameras can draw as much attention my way as appearing in them, it seems, in the wrong circumstances. Maure knows I was avoiding them, he's letting me know that he knows but unlike the rest of that crowd he didn't think it was suspicious. He thinks I'm odd in an amusing way, not a sinister one. Interesting._

"Really?" Patrick said out loud, not-quite-convincing innocent surprise dripping from every syllable to test his theory. Maure's response to that was an appreciative chuckle. _Yes, I amuse him. He must have found me amusing when he took me out of the library last night. That's why he didn't find me threatening. That got him on my side, made him want to convince the others I was harmless. That's why he went through the camera footage when he did, to help get me out of there. _Patrick felt grateful, a good cop indeed. They'd reached the main doors and Maure held out his hand with an unsuppressed grin on his face.

"Goodbye again, Mr. Jane." They shook hands. "It's been a real pleasure. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I hope we bump into each other again before your research is over, in happier circumstances."

Concerned, Patrick asked, "The little girl's OK, isn't she? Her and the mom?" They'd seemed fine to him as Garcia led them both away, the mom carrying her daughter, relief pouring off the one and contented sleepiness filling the other. Maure nodded and Patrick saw something else as well as reassurance in the gesture. More approval?

"Both just fine, thanks to you. I was thinking more about your, uh, unproductive afternoon."

Nonplussed Patrick replied, "I guess I could learn to be a little less camera-shy," which heightened the amused look on Maure's face.

"Might help keep you out of trouble more than avoiding them does," he nodded, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Thank you, Deputy Maure, I shall take your advice to heart."

_I must have seemed pretty furtive, _Patrick considered as he headed across the campus, now towards the main University library where they kept the psychology books and journals. He was no longer avoiding the cameras. _I thought I managed to keep my darkness to myself but maybe I didn't, maybe that's what the others saw that made them suspicious. _Patrick paused in his thoughts. _I don't think so, Maure's sharper than all of them and I'm sure he didn't see it. He was too distracted because my actions amused him. No, he also believes I'm a good man. He thought I did everything I could to reunite the girl with her mom, that's why he dug out the proof of his theory so quickly. He approved just now when I asked if they were both OK. He thinks that makes me a good man. _Another pause. _It's true, I really did do something altruistic today, I didn't care that it got me into trouble. Maybe that does make me a good man. Or, _he chuckled cynically at himself,_ at least not all bad. Although… _

The darkness inside dispassionately reviewed the afternoon's events as he walked. _When people find me amusing they don't see me, not the scary part of me. The little girl didn't see it, Maure didn't either. When they're laughing they aren't scared. _That was a revelation_. _His previous life had been built around the exact opposite, getting people to take him seriously when inside he'd been amusing himself. _My previous work life, anyway. Life outside of family. The only kind of life I have now._ It wouldn't be such a big change for him to do the opposite, amuse the world to hide the darkness inside. He was good at entertaining people, he'd been an entertainer all his life. _I can hide behind that truth, divert them away from seeing anything scary in me._

He thought about Dr. Miller and the choices he'd made that day. _I didn't go looking for trouble today but I didn't care when trouble found me. Why should I? What trouble could be worse than what Red John did? Maure imagined I did the right thing and to hell with the consequences. Well I did do that, in a way, but not for the reason he thought. Their kind of consequences just aren't very consequential to me any more. I might be a murderer but I still know the difference between right and wrong. Why not choose to do the right thing when the opportunity arises? Why not start looking like one of the good guys? That way I can live with my conscience and it's also another truth I can hide behind._

He hadn't realised he'd been fidgeting. How long had that been going on? _Though subconsciously I must have noticed, that's why I got the coin out._ He paused, reflecting again that he was more of a mess than he had thought._I guess they get a lot of oddballs doing research here. That's also how Deputy Maure sees me. I am an oddball, now, I can't hide my fidgeting when I don't know I'm doing it but I can hide the truth of my new vocation behind the truth that I'm so obviously a harmless mess. Mostly harmless, anyway. Maybe I should say: harmless to most. _

Hiding the darkness behind truth rather than lies. It was another intriguing, beguiling idea. The truth was easier to keep track of, after all. He'd done it all that afternoon without meaning to, without even realizing that was what he had done, as naturally as if he'd been doing it all his life. Truth but not the whole truth. The kind of truth that hides another reality. Dishonest truth. That sounded like something he would find easy to do.

_I don't want to become Captain Ahab. Why not be a boy scout or Coco the Clown instead? I'd rather the world laughed at me than fled in terror, or pitied me. There's only one man I want to scare._


	5. Chapter 5

Patrick Jane gave a start as the warning bell rang, signalling half an hour to the library closing. The psychology textbooks and journals were held here in the main University library, presumably because they were not considered 'medical' enough for the Zane. After the fuss was all resolved earlier that day he had come straight here, spent the rest of the evening looking for more information about Red John, starting with the textbooks first as he had done in the Zane. The psychologists' perspectives were different to the psychiatric ones, interesting in their way but the details he sought were similarly absent from their writings. He'd gotten maybe halfway through his list of books that contained information about Red John by the time he had to leave. He headed back to his motel, picking up a gas station sandwich on the way.

He noticed a girl leaving one of the rooms upstairs as he arrived. She was reading something on her phone or sending a text, not really paying attention to her surroundings. A thought occurred, and he headed to intercept her at the bottom of the stairs.

"Hello, young lady, I wondered if I could ask you a question?"

"You need to speak to my business manager, he'll be here in about ten minutes." Well that confirmed his initial cold-read had been correct, anyway. _Jesus, she's even younger than I thought, under all that make-up she couldn't be more than twenty._

"Ah, no, I don't want to avail myself of your services this evening, I, ah, just wondered if you knew where there might be an, um, unofficial late-night pharmacist." Now she looked at him curiously.

"You wanna buy some drugs?"

"Yes."

"You a cop?"

"No."

"Twenty bucks."

"Excuse me?"

"I can tell ya where to go for twenty bucks."

"Ten." He'd said it automatically then felt bad about it. Was he really haggling over information about drug dealers with this young prostitute?

"Deal." _Whatever her profession, that smacked of inexperience, didn't it_? She was holding out her hand so he dug around in his pockets, found a ten.

"Whatcha after?"

"Hey…"

"No, I'm not hustling ya, I just mean, if you're after, y'know, M.J. it's one guy, if you want coke it's someone else, stuff like that," she explained.

"Sleeping pills. Prescription ones. Anything strong." Again she gave him an appraising look.

"I got Temazepam right here." She started rummaging in her handbag.

"You can't sleep?" She just raised her eyebrows at him for a second then continued searching. Patrick shook his head, murmured to himself, "Never mind." She pulled out what seemed like quite a full bottle of pills and gave them a shake.

"Five each."

"Fifty bucks for the whole bottle," he countered. She shook her head.

"I need these. Don't know when I'll get more." She wasn't lying and her attitude seemed to suggest that whatever these pills really were, at least they helped her sleep. Of course that just meant she believed they were genuine, not that they really were. He didn't think she'd got them on prescription herself.

"OK, twenty-five bucks for half."

"Thirty."

"Deal, if I count out the pills." She shrugged, so he took the bottle off her. The label on the bottle said 'Temazepam', but then it also said they were prescribed to 'Mrs Coelho'. He didn't pass comment. The tablets were white, anonymous, different to the ones he'd been given by the hospital. Half turned out to be eleven pills. He handed over the cash and the bottle with the remaining pills, pocketed his half. Temazepam was what he'd been given on his discharge, if these were the genuine article he'd just gotten a bargain. If not, well… maybe he would stop by some clinic tomorrow. It should be easy to tell, he could guarantee a dreamless night with Temazepam.

He hadn't been asleep for long before the old, familiar nightmare started. He was climbing the staircase, reading the hateful note, opening the door to the mocking, bloody icon on the wall, finding the mutilated bodies of Angela and Charlotte beneath. He had again woken screaming. He was overcome with sadness, curled into a fetal ball and weeping his regret at the unfeeling walls of his anonymous motel room. His mind filled with the same unanswerable questions that had broken him all those months before. Had Charlotte been conscious when Red John slaughtered her? Did the monster make Angela watch as he ripped apart her precious little girl or had Charlotte been forced to witness the screaming death of her mommy? How long had it taken them to die? Had they begged Red John for the release of death before the end?_ Did he tell you it was my fault? _This was too much, he felt icy with despair and it seemed there was nothing left inside him to fight it. He knew too much about their deaths to ever move on while that monster was still breathing but it was everything he didn't know that tormented him beyond endurance. He felt again the siren call of death, his own not the monster's, to put a final end to this misery.

_I can't bear this. How could anyone bear this?_

_I don't need to know. _It started as the faintest of whispers inside his mind but it was relentless. No longer cold and hard, the darkness was no less strong for now seeming warm and embracing. _I've made a decision that means I don't need to know these things any more. Would I ask him? Beg him to tell me? Will I give him that power over me?_

"No!" He didn't realize he'd shouted until he heard himself.

He couldn't change what had happened, though he wished with his whole being that he could. Knowing the answers to these questions wouldn't strengthen his resolve, help in his hunt or offer him any aid with the necessary conclusion of it. What helped was knowing that he no longer needed to know the answers. He had chosen to murder Red John. He would find him, plan his slow and painful death, then carry out the plan. There could be no possibility of mercy, he would give the monster no bargaining chips to weaken his resolve. The choice had been made. Everything else – _everything_ else_ –_ was just fine details. He wasn't going to give the monster _anything_. The questions that had formerly shredded his sanity were blunted by his choice, faded, became almost irrelevant. _I don't have to bear this. It's a burden I've already set aside because of the choice I have made. There are some things I no longer need to know. _He wasn't going to waste time asking questions of Red John when he caught him. At last he lay, stretched out and unthinking, staring at nothing in the darkness of his motel room and picturing Angela smiling her understanding of him. After a long time a lesser, dreamless oblivion finally overtook him.

Patrick returned to the library first thing in the morning expecting this would be his last day at Stamford. He finished methodically working his way through the remaining books in a scant few hours – his speed reading and use of his memory palace were both definitely faster now – then started on the academic journals. When the warning bell sounded that evening he threw down his pencil. He had some more information, yes, but the details he needed still eluded him. His mind wandered back to the article he hadn't found, some internal FBI profile of Red John.

That didn't make much sense. Sacramento PD had the case, didn't they? He'd given a statement to the detective in charge, Elliott, as well as to various other members of his team as fresh questions arose afterwards. It had been awkward, this was the man he'd duped into hiring him as a psychic consultant on the Red John case. To Elliott's credit he had remained professionally courteous after Patrick confessed to being a fraud. He had thought psychic abilities weren't real but had been prepared to try anything to move the hunt for Red John forward. Maybe he had commissioned the FBI to write the profile too? _That smacked of desperation, didn't it? Calling in the FBI, hiring me, for chrissakes? _Patrick cast his mind back. There had been a huge amount of police paperwork for the previous eight murders Red John had committed, he'd been shown some photographs and personal items but there had been boxes full of files and other things he'd never looked at. _The details I'm looking for will be in the police files for all the Red John murders. Maybe Elliott would be willing to let me see inside those boxes._ Patrick put back the last few journals he'd read. Stamford couldn't help him any more. For the last time he left the University campus, headed back to his motel.

_Food, sleep, drive to Sacramento in the morning._ He had one last genuine sleeping pill he'd been hoarding like a precious jewel. He'd take it tonight. He needed to be rested tomorrow, take the freeway, get there early. _More sleep will help me come up with some ideas for tackling Elliott. I need to see all his Red John files._


	6. Chapter 6

Detective William Elliott didn't exactly hate his current job. Reviewing cold case files was necessary work, a fresh set of eyes often spotted something crucial that had been overlooked in the original investigation. He had a reputation as a thorough investigator, he accepted he was more of a plodder than a brilliant innovator, he knew cold case reviews were a good match for his skills and temperament. He also believed his Chief had done his best to shield him, both from the unfavourable attention of the bigwigs and from the media crapstorm that had arisen when the family of the consultant he hired to work on the Red John case had been targeted and murdered by him. All the same, he couldn't help resenting the fact that he'd been demoted into this isolated backwater job, his team now dispersed. He missed being the boss of a team.

His one hope had been that he only had to wait for the next poor sap to run foul of another high-profile case before he could quietly return to Homicide, to the job he loved. It had been months now, there had been a couple of high-profile cases go wrong but here he still was. It was eight in the morning, Elliott had just arrived in his office carrying a cup of the foul effluent they called coffee on this floor when his phone rang.

"Elliott? This is Sergeant Cordero on the front desk. You got a visitor, a Mr Jane? Shall I put him in Family?" The young desk sergeant's voice wasn't exactly offensive but Cold Cases just didn't get the respect that he'd grown accustomed to in Homicide and it still stung him a little. Cordero was something of a hotshot according to Department gossip, already sailing through his detective exams, wouldn't be desk sergeant much longer, probably thought he was entitled to a little familiarity with existing detectives. 'Family' was the Relatives and Victims Meeting Room, a place with soft lighting and even softer couches where cops could deliver bad news in a gentler setting than an office or interview room.

"Jane? Patrick Jane? A little under six feet tall, around 165 pounds, blond wavy hair, blue eyes?

"That's the guy."

"Bring him up here, interview room 2." Room 2 was opposite Elliott's office, he'd just seen it was empty on his way in. Jane's confession that he was a fake and his subsequent disappearance off his team's radar had been more nails in the coffin of Elliott's career, and Elliott had been suspicious of them both. He knew Family or his office would be more appropriate for talking to the relative of victims but he didn't care. The resentment that had been building up in him over the last few months suddenly had a focus.

"I'll arrange for an officer to do that, Detective Elliott." The desk sergeant had felt it was OK to remind him he was far too important to bring the guy up himself and it nettled him. He didn't like the sergeant but he bit back his first reply. If Cordero was the next golden boy it would be a bad idea to chew him out. Elliott didn't need any more enemies.

"Thank you, Sergeant Cordero," he simply replied, coldly, and hung up.

Patrick Jane thought something was a little off the moment that the desk sergeant left him in the interview room. _If this is the family room I'd hate to see the cells,_ he thought. He warily regarded the big two-way mirror, the table bolted to the floor before taking up a position leaning against the far wall, eschewing the rigid, uncomfortable-looking chairs. After he'd been waiting ten minutes he knew something was seriously wrong. The lighting was low on the other side of the mirror but he was sure he'd caught a flash of movement in there several minutes previously.

_Elliott's put me in here, not the family room, and left me to stew. Either he or one of his team is on the other side of that glass watching how I react. Why? Last time we met he was stiff but cordial, I think._ Patrick thought he must have been very drunk at the time for the memory to be so hazy. _What's changed in the last six months?_ Patrick pondered for a moment. _I've been unavailable. I wonder if he's been wanting to ask me more questions? _After a few more moments he thought, I _guess it wouldn't look good that he hired someone as a consultant who turned out to be a fraud. _Only a little more thought dredged up the notion_ it would look worse that his consultant's family was murdered by the serial killer he's investigating._

Patrick was surprised he was thinking so dispassionately about the murder of his own family but it felt… appropriate. He needed to be able to think rationally if he was going to investigate Red John for himself. He was damned if he was going to show any vulnerability to Elliott if the man was as hostile as he seemed. It was a few days now since he'd stopped taking his meds, he'd had a reasonable amount of sleep the night before and a traffic-free drive to Sacramento as the night had slowly turned to day. He was as fresh and alert as he could have hoped for if he was facing a confrontation. He still hoped Elliott had just been delayed by something, would be agreeable to his request.

_More waiting. _Patrick knew he was smarter than any of the various policemen he'd met before his breakdown, was sure he could use his cold reading skills and his talent for manipulating people to get more information from witnesses than they ever had. _And I don't have to follow their rules. _The thought rose from the new darkness inside and he knew it was true. He needed Elliott's help to get the details that he craved about the murders, then he could revisit witnesses under some pretext. During the drive up here he'd been speculating about maybe starting a support group for the families of Red John's victims as a front for more clandestine investigations, hiding the darker truth behind a more innocent one. He was still a registered therapist in California, a hangover from his former psychic days, which could prove very useful if that idea panned out. However he needed details, names and addresses of the families of victims and witnesses if anything like that was going to happen. Elliott was starting to look like the first obstacle in his path rather than the next helper. If the detective was as hostile as his actions so far suggested he wouldn't want Patrick to see the files.

_Still no sign of Elliott._ Now he thought about it Elliott hadn't seemed like the sort of guy who would hold a grudge, though that could just have been the veneer of professionalism that cops developed. It was a real puzzle what Elliott thought he was doing right now. Getting his help looked like it was going to be a challenge and Patrick was starting to feel pre-show nerves. He had felt like this before he saw Zack, his lawyer, but not when he was erasing the records of his stay in hospital or researching in the library. The difference was being up against a person who might not give him what he needed, he decided. The library and the hospital had been necessary work. Getting the better of someone, showing he was the smartest guy in the room had always been enjoyable in the old days and he felt a kind of wistful nostalgia. There hadn't been any joy in his life for such a long time. At least he was feeling like he was ready for whatever was coming next. After that, well, he'd deal with whatever came after when it happened. _One step at a time_.

Maybe it was time to provoke Elliott a little, find out exactly what was going on here. Patrick pushed himself up from the wall, crossed the room over to the two-way mirror and stood exactly in front of the place he had seen the faint movement earlier. He leaned forward conspiratorially, looked into the mirror at eye level and spoke in a low voice.

"Er, Detective Elliott? Are you gonna join me in here or should I come through there?"


	7. Chapter 7

Detective Elliott had wanted to try some provoking of his own. He'd had Patrick Jane taken to an interview room rather than Family or his office because he'd been suspiciously unavailable for six months. He knew Jane hadn't actually gone missing, the secretary and lawyer had both told him that much, but he could find out nothing else. Oh the lawyer probably didn't know, he'd keep his hands professionally clean but that secretary, he'd been sure she was up to her neck in Jane's grubby business. Too sure… He burned again with humiliation at the fallout from his last encounter with her, the one that had resulted in his being here rather than upstairs in Homicide. Elliott took another sip of his coffee, he'd take his time in an attempt to intimidate Jane a little.

At first he'd felt so sorry for Jane, they all had, all the more so because of his daughter. Child victims weren't so very uncommon in their line of work and they had been working the Red John case for long enough to become experts in his particular brand of depravity, but even so the horrible death of the little girl in particular had affected everyone on the team. Jane had apparently gone to go to pieces, hitting the bottle like an express train and going downhill even more rapidly after the funeral.

He'd confessed straight away he wasn't really psychic, which pretty much meant he was a con man in Elliott's eyes even if what he'd been doing wasn't strictly illegal. He'd been a convincing liar – he'd fooled Elliott into taking him on even though the detective wasn't really a believer in psychics. Looking back that was when Elliott had first become suspicious that he was some kind of bad guy. Oh not regarding the murders – they were definitely Red John and anyway Jane had a cast-iron alibi – but instead suspicious of Jane himself. How could anyone make that good of a living by just pretending to be psychic? Psychics had cheesy-looking booths in boardwalk fairgrounds, not multi-million-dollar houses by the ocean in Malibu – that they bought for cash, for chrissakes!

When he'd 'gone away' Elliott had concluded Jane must have other, well-hidden and lucrative so definitely illegal, streams of income and that he had vanished in order to go back to them. Such a good liar wouldn't have a problem deceiving people into thinking he was still grieving, either, or using it as a cover to do… well… whatever it was that paid his bills. When they'd checked his tax returns and finances they'd been squeaky clean. Why hadn't anyone else felt that was suspicious? And then the man had disappeared so completely. In Elliott's experience people who had turned to the bottle so enthusiastically weren't that good at going off-grid. They weren't that good at doing _anything._

Now was his chance to prove it. This couldn't be an official interrogation, he couldn't record it without alerting Jane to what he was doing which would probably make him lawyer up. However it didn't have to be strictly unofficial either. Jane had turned up voluntarily and being in Cold Cases at least gave Elliott a wide remit to interview witnesses unaccompanied, able to rely later on notes taken during such interviews. Finding out what Jane had been up to might not get him back into Homicide but it should be enough to get him out of Cold Cases.

Elliott was hoping that keeping Jane waiting in the interview room should make him a little nervous. Nervous people were more talkative, especially if they weren't expecting to be questioned. He'd find out what Jane's story was for the last six months, ask about the specifics until he caught the man in a lie then see where it led. It was a good plan considering he'd come up with it on the spur of the moment. He finished his coffee, slipped a couple of random loose pages into a manila folder and headed for the interview room.

On an impulse at the last minute he'd veered into the observation room to take a quick look at Jane, size him up before they talked. Jane looked worse than the last time Elliott saw him, when he'd thought the man had been drunk. His hair was longer and more dishevelled, his clothes were stained and crumpled, it looked like he'd been sleeping in them in some alley. Superficially he seemed like a pitiful wreck. However the sight of Jane leaning nonchalantly against the far wall looking utterly relaxed infuriated Elliott. His body language was all wrong, it screamed self assurance, confidence. The man was here for a reason. No-one came to see cops unless they had a good reason. Hadn't he read somewhere that sociopaths got you to pity them so they could manipulate you into doing what they want? Was that what Jane was up to? To hell with that! Jane might have dressed the part but his body language had just given him away because he thought he wasn't being watched.

Elliott continued to examine Jane. He was waiting for him to fidget, pace the floor, do anything to indicate the nervousness Elliott thought he ought to be feeling. Instead he stayed calmly still, slouched against the wall with his hands in his pockets as though he hadn't a care in the world as the minutes sleeted past, an unreadable expression on his face. Wasn't that another sign of a sociopath, someone who didn't react like a normal person to stressful situations? Two strikes Mr. Jane, thought Elliott, two strikes. Finally Jane had moved but instead of betraying any sign of nerves he'd walked calmly over to the mirror, stood right in front of him, looked him directly in the eye and come out with some smartass comment! Elliott knew he couldn't possibly see him through the mirror. He claimed he wasn't psychic, how the hell did he do that? It propelled him out of Obs and into the interview room in under two seconds. He didn't notice someone quietly slip into the observation room behind him before the door swung shut.


	8. Chapter 8

"Mr. Jane, please take a seat." Detective Elliott indicated the chair facing the mirror as he dropped the folder onto the table with a slap, trying to regain the upper hand in the situation. _Definitely hostile,_ Patrick thought. He hesitated for a second then sat, hands clasped loosely in front of him to prevent fidgeting, a helpful, enquiring look on his face. Elliott moved round the table, perched on it in front of Jane just inside his personal space. He regarded Jane for a long moment in silence.

"Well Mr. Jane, what brings you to Sacramento Police Department today?" _Direct, to the point, he's hostile but polite for now, trying to intimidate_. The impressions came to Patrick thick and fast, almost without conscious thought. _OK, let's start out being direct too_.

"I, uh, wanted to ask about Red John? It's been a while, I was hoping you could tell me about the progress you've made regarding the murder of, of my wife and daughter." He said their names within the confines of his head but now it came to it he couldn't name them out loud. 'Wife' and 'daughter' felt less personal, though the words still took an effort to say. He'd been watching Elliott's face carefully since he entered the room. Apparently it was a painful subject for him too.

"Progress in the case." Elliott nodded, looking at the wall as he said it rather than at Jane and slipping a professional expression back onto his face. "It has been a while, Mr. Jane, may I ask where you've been for the last six months?"

"I've been away."

"Away?" The silence stretched on but Jane wasn't going to elaborate without some prompting. "Could you be more specific, Mr. Jane?"

"Yes, I needed some time to myself after – afterwards. But now I'm back and I was wondering about your recent progress. In the case."

"Away," Elliott repeated, "Yes, your lawyer and secretary said the same thing. They wouldn't tell me where, though. Could you tell me where you went please?" _Not after all the effort it took to remove the record of my being there,_ thought Patrick.

"Why is this relevant, Detective Elliott?" Elliott leaned closer.

"You didn't leave the country, I checked," Elliott continued, ignoring Patrick's question. It had taken him three damn weeks but he checked the entire state of California and much of Oregon and Nevada too, every tiny airfield and minor marina as well as all the border crossings and the more obvious points of exit. "Of course my checks wouldn't work if you were traveling illegally. Did you travel out of the country illegally, Mr. Jane? On a false passport, perhaps?" _What the hell is this?_ Patrick thought. _Does he think I was running drugs or something right after the murder of my family?_ Patrick kept his voice mild, curious.

"I wouldn't even know how to go about getting a false passport, Detective. How is this relevant to the murder of my family?" Elliott certainly appeared to be genuinely angry and barely controlling his temper, if this was just his 'bad cop' routine it was a good one. Patrick was puzzled why he was on the receiving end of it. _But you don't realise that I have nothing left to lose. I'm not scared of anything you can do to me._ The thought was liberating and his darker thoughts added _if you do anything to me that you shouldn't my lawyer will make you show me the Red John files whether you want to or not._

"Oh I'm sure that secretary of yours could get you all the fake documents you need. Did you leave the country, Mr. Jane? Or were you just using a fake identity here instead? Where did you go? What have you been doing for the last six months?" Elliott was becoming very hostile very quickly.

"What went wrong, Detective Elliott?" Patrick's voice was still quiet and calm, gently enquiring, in stark contrast to Elliott's increasingly strident tones. "You can't possibly suspect me of killing my family. Why are my whereabouts for the last six months so important to you? Did you have more questions for me about my wife and daughter's case, is that it?"

"Nothing went wrong!" Elliott hadn't intended to bang his fist on the edge of the table or say this quite so loud. The sudden violence startled Patrick, made him jump. It didn't make him talk, though, instead he simply scrutinised Elliott even more closely. Dammit, thought Elliott, you're not supposed to be in control here, I am! I should be asking the questions, not you! He couldn't stay still any longer so he stood, moved to the other side of the table. It made him even easier to read.

"You're no longer investigating Red John." Patrick kept his voice calm, hoping now that he wasn't provoking Elliiott_. If he hits me Zack will have him over a barrel but that won't help me any more. He can't give me what I want because the case isn't his any longer. I need him to tell me who has the Red John case now._

"Who told you? Cordero?"

"You think it's my fault you were taken off the case, that's why you're so angry with me." Elliott stopped pacing and stood facing Jane.

"I'm not angry." He said it quieter but his hands had momentarily balled into fists.

Yes you are, you're very angry. You're off the most important case of your career, you want to redeem yourself and you think you can do that by proving I'm some kind of master criminal." Elliott moved to the table, eyes gleaming, leaned on his knuckles across it. Had that just been an accidental confession?

"Are you? Is that what you are, Mr. Jane? A master criminal? Masterminding crimes? What crimes were you masterminding?"

"You hire me as a consultant and I turn out to be a fraud, that looks bad. No, that just proved the skeptics were right, it wasn't enough to get you moved off the case. You hire me then the serial killer you're investigating kills my – my family." Patrick swallowed before continuing, "That's much worse. It looks like you can't protect one of your own. Red John is running rings around you, your bosses aren't impressed and the media are having a field day at your expense. You're bad at handling the media when they're not on your side." Elliott's triumphant expression had rapidly changed, now he looked positively haunted. That was exactly what had happened to wreck his career, he hadn't even realised how terribly he'd handled the media until Jane said it just now. Everything had started to go wrong after his second interview with Channel Ten News and that reporter's relentlessly horrible questions. After that no-one had looked him in the eye, or after any subsequent appearance on TV but he'd never picked up on it until now. He stood back, crossing his arms tightly.

"That's not true!"

"Yes it is. Your career's in trouble because the media's out for your blood, your bosses are too, everyone's looking for a scapegoat. Just when you think things can't get any worse you lose track of me. You found that suspicious for some reason. That's why you want to know where I've been. I vanished but there was no Missing Person's report and my lawyer and PA stonewalled you when you asked them about me."

"I knew that ice-queen and your weasel were covering something up for you, I just couldn't find out what!" _Whoa, where did that come from? What did Susan say to you? What did you do to her?_

"When I became unavailable you didn't think I'd come to harm, instead you suspected I was doing something wrong and you confronted my PA about it. Whatever you said or did upset her enough for her to complain to your boss, that's why they gave the Red John case to someone else."

"She got your weasel to complain to the DA! Got me off the case and out of Homicide faster than I could blink!" _The DA? I didn't think Zack had that kind of juice. I certainly didn't, nor did Angela, neither of us ever made campaign contributions. Susan isn't connected either, she would have just told your boss. Could Zack have got his dad to call in a favour from one of his old poker buddies? It seems a bit far-fetched, Simon's been out of the game for years. Doesn't matter, it happened._

"You broke some rule or other when you questioned my PA about me, you went too far. She had a legitimate complaint against you personally, Detective Elliott. When the DA heard about it he told your boss to sack you."

"No." Elliott said weakly. He wasn't denying whatever he'd done to Susan, it sounded more like self-pity over the consequences. Patrick's only visible response was the slightest narrowing of his eyes but he thought _You went after Susan. You don't deserve any mercy from me now. I haven't forgiven myself for what I said to her before my breakdown but you used more than just words, didn't you, Detective?_

"Someone else was given the most important case of your career because you messed up. You think putting me behind bars will prove you were right all along, make it all OK_. _You were moved off the case, transferred out of Homicide and you blame me, but you weren't getting anywhere with the Red John case, you dealt poorly with the media and with the politics of it too. Then you got sidetracked accusing me of wrongdoing, tried to implicate my PA as well and did it so badly that your boss had you transferred out of Homicide. You couldn't have worked harder to kill your own career if you'd been doing it deliberately. You did this to yourself and you know it. You can't bear to take responsibility for that so you blame me."

_It isn't my fault. You blame me but it really isn't my fault. My disappearance couldn't have helped but you still had the case when I had my breakdown. You did this to yourself with maybe a little help from someone in the DA's office who was using you as a pawn in their political game. I am many bad things but a criminal mastermind isn't one of them._

"No!"

"Yes. Who is it, Detective Elliott? Who has the Red John case now?"

"You're psychic, you tell me!" His words were like whips across Patrick's soul. Elliott had just been lashing out but he could tell he'd hit home, Jane looked genuinely stricken.

"I'm not a psychic. There's no such thing as psychics. I told you, I told everyone, I'm a fraud." Patrick could hear his voice breaking as he said it. Elliott sat down opposite, leaning forward, pressing home his advantage now he finally had it.

"Where were you? I need to know. You tell me where you were, I'll tell you who caught the Red John case. Where did you go? What did you do? Just between us, here and now. They're never gonna let me near any investigation into you now. You can tell me. What were you up to this last six months? Tell me, what have you been doing? I gotta know. Tell me." For a long moment Patrick hesitated but Elliott was telling the truth. He needed to know where Patrick had been, why he couldn't find him. _I've messed with my records enough, he'll never verify what I say or find out exactly where I've been._ Patrick leaned forward as well, spoke quietly but enunciated each word clearly, he wasn't going to say this out loud ever again.

"I was detained for my own safety against my will in a secure mental facility." Elliott jerked back across the table as if he'd been scalded, horror in his face, his anger crumpling in on itself as Patrick's words sank in. The man obviously had some phobia about insanity. It was Patrick's turn to press home his advantage.

"For the last six months I've been a raving madman in a strait jacket, locked away in a padded cell in an insane asylum, Detective." He was exaggerating to play on Elliott's fears, but not by much. Elliott believed him, he could see it. Who would lie about something like that? "That's why my PA and my lawyer wouldn't tell you where I was. What Red John did to my family drove me insane_._"_ I thought I didn't want anyone to know, thought it would make me too vulnerable, but I just used that vulnerability against you and it was more powerful than anything else I could have said. Truth as a weapon, power in vulnerability._

"Oh God." The realization that he had made yet another mistake was hitting home to Elliott, the awareness that it was his mistake alone, that no-one else could be blamed for it made him feel sick. "Oh God." Elliott didn't know what to say. His anger had disappeared and he was staring at the table unable to meet Patrick's gaze, utterly shocked, partly at the thought of going insane – his own worst nightmare – partly with shame as he replayed his own words and suspicions within the confines of his head and partly with fear that his behavior today would finally get him fired. Jane only had to mention it to his boss, hint he'd go to the media…

"Red John, Detective! Who's running the investigation now?"

"Agent Lisbon, CBI." Elliott was distracted by whatever horrors were playing out in his own head but it had the ring of truth to it. Patrick wanted to ask 'what's the CBI' but he could already see the pity forming in Elliott's eyes, feel the self-disgust rising in his own throat. He needed to get out of there. _I don't exactly know what my words just did to you, Detective, and I don't care. Whatever it was you deserved it._ Patrick stood up.

"I'm leaving now, Detective."

"God, an insane asylum… I'm – I'm..." Elliott was babbling, still not meeting his eye. Patrick regarded the man for a moment then simply opened the door, closed it behind him. Checking no-one was watching he ducked quickly into the room behind the two-way mirror. There wasn't any recording equipment, no-one was in there but a fresh hint of cologne and sweat gave him the impression a man had been observing them, had just left. _They won't find any evidence for what I just said on any computers_, Patrick thought uneasily. _It should be OK. There's no actual proof. Cops need proof._


	9. Chapter 9

As Patrick Jane left the Sacramento Police Department Sergeant Cordero was in the bullpen in the back. He looked like he was sitting at a colleague's desk borrowing his phone but in fact he was talking into a burner that was tucked carefully beneath the handset. He'd made sure no-one was near enough to overhear the call before he made it.

"…what he said, Sir, an insane asylum and it spooked Elliott… Yessir…" Cordero snorted contemptuously. "Like a hobo, Sir, though what he said seemed sharp enough… Sorry, Sir, he didn't say…. Yessir, asking about developments on the case… Yes, Sir, Elliott sent him to the CBI… I would say not right away, Sir, but I think Elliott'll be more open to persuasion once I make detective… Of course. Thank you, Sir." The line went dead. Cordero breathed out slowly, checked again carefully that no-one could have overheard anything but he'd been talking quietly and the bullpen was almost empty at this time of the day. He was safe. He hung up the desk phone, deleted all records of the call he'd made from the burner, wiped it for prints then slipped it into his colleague's bottom drawer, behind his hanging files. There was no such thing as 'too careful' in his mind, nor 'too much deference' when it came to the Boss.

The new desk sergeant had been very helpful to Patrick Jane on his way out. He'd given him a street map of central Sacramento and put a big 'X' where the CBI building was, across town near the Statehouse on 15th and 'L'. When he'd asked if there was a local diner that did good tea the man had scribbled another 'X' on the map. 'I don't drink it myself,' he'd said, 'but Millie's have a lot of tea options on their board and it's only two blocks north.' Just a few minutes later Patrick was delighted to discover they did a wide variety of real tea as well as herbal. He settled in a booth by the window and dug his papers out of his pocket, started writing. When the waitress came to take his order he swiftly chose a pot of Assam. He didn't want to talk to anyone, he needed some time to think.

_Not to calm down, though,_ he thought. His confrontation with Elliott hadn't left him feeling guilty or shaken. If anything he felt… energized. After he provoked Elliott into finally stepping into the interview room he'd been winging it, feeling his way. He had automatically started cold reading to see if he could find out what was going on then shifted seamlessly into full-blown psychic consultation mode. For just a few minutes it had been as if the last year had never happened, he'd been so intent on watching Elliott's pupils and body language for his reactions. He had spooked Elliott, too, even before that last suckerpunch. He was pretty sure his admission would have made the detective tell him what he wanted even if madness didn't terrify him, just because of how discomfiting such a confession is. When the waitress brought his tea – in a pot on a tray full of paraphernalia – he just nodded his acknowledgement, continued scribbling.

Patrick's mind went back to the day he first saw his car. He'd rediscovered his capacity for compassion when he heard how badly Mike Leckebusch had taken the death of his friend, the car's former owner. He had connected with Mike because of their shared experience. Patrick knew from bitter experience that most people would have thought about how awkward they felt rather than considering the feelings of a bereaved man. That's why he had made such a big impression even though he hadn't been trying to. Most people were very uncomfortable around things like death or madness and Patrick had both in his armory now. Elliott's phobia had only magnified what would have been there for anyone. Patrick didn't feel guilty about what he'd done to Elliott because… Why? Because Elliott had gone after Susan? That was only part of it. Because it had been in pursuit of his new vocation? _Yes_. He couldn't have taken Elliott's money without throwing up in self-disgust yet he'd stolen away the man's self-esteem almost without batting an eyelid. _Because he stood between me and Red John._ He knew it was true, this was what he had seen in himself in the mirror four days ago. He was darkly impressed. _I can behave like a good guy to assuage my conscience but… _He poured himself a cup of tea. _Not such a good guy, after all._

Patrick stared out of the window while he sipped his tea. He didn't need a plan for visiting the CBI, there were too many unknowns, but he did need an approach. Elliott had been prejudiced against him, but also he watched him through the one-way glass for a while before they talked and everything he saw made him even more hostile. Patrick thought about Maure. _If this Lisbon is a good cop then I need to get him on my side so he wants to help me out. He has to think I'm a good guy. If he's a bad cop, well, they're easy enough to deal with._

A dark SUV parked right outside the diner, blocking his view of the street. Patrick's eyes refocused onto his own reflection in the window. One hand was holding his cup on the table but the index finger of the other was tapping his lip absently while he thought. He stopped himself, instead grasping the teacup with both hands. _I'm still a hot mess._ He pondered that for a while. _I can't stop myself from fidgeting so I should hide behind that truth rather than trying to hide it, even if it means enduring this guy Lisbon's pity for a while._ It was all about leverage. He needed to learn what motivated this new guy so he could use it. He had to somehow create an opportunity to see the information he craved, that was his priority. Pity was at least a natural place to start. He was pitiful, it was a truth about himself that he despised but he could still use it, hide behind it.

Patrick Jane drove up to the gate of the California Bureau of Investigation car park. The very young deputy in the little booth by the gate gave him a polite smile. _That makes me feel old, policemen – well, police women – looking like a kid in a Halloween costume._

"Good morning, sir, can I ask your business with the California Bureau of Investigation today?"

"Uh, Hello, Deputy. I'm, ah, here to see Agent Lisbon. Do you have any visitor parking spaces?" She was giving his car the once-over rather than paying attention.

"That's a lovely old car, I don't think I ever saw one like that."

"Thank you," he smiled, "I think she's lovely too. She's a 1972 Citroen DS Pallas." As he said this the Deputy's eyes became resentful, the corners of her mouth turned down in disapproval. Patrick swiftly reviewed what he'd just said. Apart from facts the only thing he had said was... 'she'…. _This young lady is just starting out in a career with the police, an institution not noted for its feminist principles. She's been given gate duty again today by her male boss while her male colleagues are probably working the streets. I just bet one of them made a crack as they left about letting her fetch their coffee and donuts when they get back. She really doesn't want to have to take any more sexist crap today._

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause offense, Deputy. This car is French and they pronounce 'DS' 'dey-ess' in France, which happens to be the French word for 'goddess'. Déesse. And Pallas..." She interrupted him.

"Pallas Athena, the Ancient Greek goddess of wisdom." Her smile had returned. In response to his raised eyebrows she added "We did Poe back at school one time." Patrick nodded.

"And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting – _still is sitting!_  
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;  
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,  
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;  
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor  
Shall be lifted—nevermore!"

"Ooh, the way you say it, it's even more chilling than when I read it!" She smiled in childish delight at Patrick. _Chilled by the poem but not yet touched by personal horror or grief. _To his surprise he managed a genuine smile back at her.

"So you see, the car's officially a goddess. Calling her 'it' wouldn't really do her justice."

"Apology and explanation accepted."

"Thank you." Patrick smiled at her again. "Do you have spaces in here for visitors, Deputy?"

"There's no spaces here, I'm afraid, but there's some designated CBI visitor spaces in the parking garage down the street." She indicated the direction with a wave of her hand. "You just need to put this in the windscreen." She handed him a flimsy piece of cardboard and Patrick thanked her again before reversing back into the street. _Poe. Its not an omen. No such thing as omens._


	10. Chapter 10

Patrick Jane sat in his parked car. The day was already very hot, so he threw his jacket onto the back seat and rolled up his sleeves. That gave him an idea. He _needed_ to see the police files on Red John. This Agent Lisbon had almost certainly talked with Elliott when the Red John cases were handed over, he would know of Elliott's suspicions even if Elliott had never written them down. Lisbon needed to know he wasn't some kind of criminal mastermind. Patrick had made up his mind to be truthful but he needed something more. He had always been in control of his actions but not any more, his fidgeting was a symptom of suppressed anxiety and twice now it had made policemen view him suspiciously. Suppressing it hadn't fixed things. He needed to peel away 'Patrick Jane' the persona and take a good look at the pitiful wreck underneath, maybe even let these policemen see him for a while.

He hoped this was a good idea.

He imagined himself standing in front of a mirror, its frame set with dozens of light bulbs. A Showman's mirror. He'd been a Showman all his life, ha, a Show_man_ nearly a decade before he was old enough to vote. In his mind's eye he was wearing a sequinned jacket. Yes that was appropriate. Even before he became the Boy Wonder his first working suit had been covered in black sequins, he and his Aunt Lily had spent weeks sewing them on. He'd been slightly built and short for his age as a child, he'd needed all the help Showbusiness could give him when he first started as his dad's assistant in the Show. The suit had looked tawdry in daylight but in the show tent with the dim lighting it had given the impression of mystery and otherworldly secrets, the extra bit of sparkle needed to transform him from an oddity to an act. Hiding himself behind a persona as carefully-crafted as his first suit had become a part of who he was. He was only ever himself at home. Now he didn't have a home and without even realizing it he'd been trying to play-act 'normal' since before he left the hospital. Except it wasn't working so well now the antidepressants had cleared his system, he was fidgeting and, worse, not realizing when he did it. Time to drop the act.

In his mind's eye he unbuttoned the jacket; shrugged it off; held it at arm's length; dropped it.

In Patrick's imagination his vest was embroidered but subtly so, show clothes but from later in his life. This was the vest from his early Mentalist and sleight-of-hand acts, the one with twenty-four pockets – eight of them very well hidden indeed – designed for trickery, concealment, diversion. He'd been tricking people since childhood too but again not something he'd done at home. His family had known all his magic tricks, familiarity breeding… if not contempt, certainly indifference. As for the other tricks, well, he never, ever manipulated his family. If he started to do it for a good reason he'd eventually do it for bad ones and he knew exactly where that slippery slope led. Trickery had been part of him for a long time but they had to be discarded too. They were a diversion, hiding his underlying vulnerability. He pictured himself unbuttoning the vest; slipping it off; holding it out; dropping it. Immediately his breathing became shallower, his heart rate increasing as his anxiety levels rose. He must have been automatically controlling his breathing for days, maybe weeks to maintain his calm. That was a shock, more evidence of being unaware of his own actions. He paused for a few moments, adjusting to this new normal, forcing himself not to breathe deeply, not to fix things. His newly-exposed paranoia made him get out of the car, check the parking garage to ensure it was empty apart from him. He could hear a car being started on the level above and watched as it passed by on its way down to the exit. Finally he felt like he could continue. He sat back down, this time locking the door before closing his eyes, picturing himself back before the mirror.

The next layer was a crisp white dress shirt. This also made complete sense to him. This was Patrick Jane the liar. Of course it would look clean, white, innocent, that was its job. He untucked the shirt, started unbuttoning it. His skin underneath seemed to be too red in the Showman's mirror that illuminated without shadows. With the last button undone he saw why. It looked as though he had been comprehensively beaten with a baseball bat wrapped in a cheesegrater. _Not subtle_, he thought_._ Livid scars stood out underneath the scabs and bruises, the same interlocking network of slicing he'd last seen in his nightmare a couple of days ago. He realized with rising anger that he had imagined himself with Charlotte's injuries. Red John hadn't varied his _modus operandi_ for her. His daughter's wounds had been distinctive, overlapping but only because the monster's usual blade was oversized on her little body. Back in the real world Patrick felt tears spill unchecked from beneath his closed eyelids, hated that he didn't know if they were for Charlotte or for himself. _Starting up my own private pity-party again? I have no right to pretend this happened to me, no right! It's all lies! _In front of his imaginary mirror, trembling with fury at himself, he screwed the shirt into a tight ball, flung it away as hard as he could into the darkness. The scars underneath the other injuries faded as he watched, disappeared. He was breathing hard, his heart hammering in his chest. Still refraining from doing anything active to calm himself, it took a long time for his pulse and breathing to slow again.

_Not exactly lies. I lost you both and it hurts so much. I can't think of you without thinking about how that monster killed you. It's in my head beating me up all the time. It was my fault, Annie, I know I deserve to feel this pain but I was never the strong one, not me. How could I possibly cope without you? I couldn't. I didn't. I don't think I'm coping now, this feels more like I'm being driven along by something much stronger than me. I'm so sorry. I just wish you could know how sorry I am. I miss both of you so much._

_I have to kill Red John. I have to. It's the only way I know to fight back. Deep down I know it isn't for you or Charlotte, it's more selfish than that. I simply can't do anything else with my life while I know he's still out there. I can't. I tried and it nearly ended me. Now you're gone it's the only reason I have to keep breathing._

_Forgive me._

Enough. If he deconstructed any more of himself there would be nothing left.

What was left? Guilt, fear, shame, grief, self-loathing. His new determination, ruthlessness, murderous revenge all still there in his eyes when he looked closely. His intellect and cold-reading skills still intact, needed if he was going to get what he wanted; his conscience also, to prevent him becoming a monster in the process – or so he hoped. There was very little else, a hollow shell pretending to be a real person which had finally discarded its pretences. Out in the darkness the tiniest glimmer of humanity must still exist, how else could he have cared at all about Mike Leckebusch or the lost little girl and her Mom?

He could imagine himself as pitiful as he liked, he still despised this man in the mirror whose arrogance had invited the monster into his home. _If someone really beat you up you would deserve it. I would deserve it._ In his imagination he turned away from the mirror. He opened his eyes in the real world, roughly wiped his face with his palms.

Still feeling a little light-headed, Patrick made it halfway to the elevators before dizziness overtook him. He stumbled heavily into a car, slid down the fender and ended up sitting with his head leaning against the cool metal of the wheel arch, his vision clouded and his ears ringing. He just about heard an elderly voice – female? – say 'My word, young man, are you all right?' then hands on his shoulders, easing him down to the floor.

"Bob? There's a bottle of water in the trunk, you just go fetch it right now!" Patrick struggled weakly but a hand was still gently on his shoulder holding him down. "No, lay down, you're white as a sheet but I think you just fainted in this heat, you need to stay down with your head below your heart for a spell, you'll be right as rain in no time. Bob?"

"Here ya go, I got it."

Patrick _was_ feeling better already. Two concerned-looking faces swam into view as his vision cleared.

"Yes I think you just fainted, young man. I used to faint all the time when I was a girl, you lay down for a minute and you'll be right as rain." The ringing in his ears had nearly stopped.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he found himself saying weakly, embarrassed. He looked up into a pair of brown eyes in a face as wrinkled as an elephant. A white-haired man was standing a little behind the woman proffering a bottle of water like a sacrament. Patrick started to rise, feeling even more embarrassed. Why were strangers being so kind to him? Had they always been like this and he'd never noticed? He had rarely himself been kind towards strangers…

"No, you should just hold still for a moment, make sure you're not going to faint again. Did you skip breakfast today, young man?"

"Patrick. Um, yes I think I did ma'am." His voice was quiet, hesitant, unlike him.

An elderly woman was kneeling next to him, the shopping bags she had been carrying discarded haphazardly around them. After a moment the man called Bob mutely helped him sit up and lean back against the car as his wife peered into his face for a few seconds then climbed painfully to her feet. She turned to rummage in one of the shopping bags, all the while continuing her running commentary.

"Bob, you help him to sit. Just lean back against this car, young man. Didn't your mother tell you breakfast's the most important meal of the day?" The woman straightened, opening a multipack of granola bars she'd found in one of her bags. "I get these for my grandson, they were on special offer, two packs for a dollar! I can't resist a bargain. His Mom says they're just full of sugar but I say a boy needs some energy to get through the day. Now you just sit there for a moment, young man, while you have one of these and a sip of water. Wandering round in the hot sun after skipping breakfast! You're asking for trouble." Patrick meekly took a bite, let Bob open the bottle of water for him as the woman continued her monologue. Bob had obviously decided years ago that the way to a long and happy marriage was to let his wife think she was in charge. He winked as he handed the bottle to Patrick, rolled his eyes but smiled affectionately as his wife again sang the praises of breakfast, and finally helped Patrick to his feet as she finished off with a lengthy harangue about making time in a busy schedule to take care of yourself. Abashed, Patrick shook Bob's hand.

"Thank you, Bob," he said as the woman paused to look him over again.

"No problem, Patrick," Bob replied, his steady voice sounding much younger than he looked, concern still showing in his face. "You sure you're OK now?"

"I'm fine," Patrick repeated, dusting himself down as best he could. Bob's wife was probably right, he had just fainted, though he suspected his hyperventilating had been as much the cause as the heat or lack of food. Nevertheless he was feeling much better for having a lie down, for putting some food inside him. He took the woman's hand and shook it. "Thank you, too, ma'am." The old woman reached up unexpectedly, pecked him on the cheek.

"You're welcome, dear," she murmured quietly, then continued, "You're getting your color back now, young man. Yes you'll be fine, fainting never hurt anyone unless they fall badly. You just remember your breakfast tomorrow!" The woman turned, started picking up her shopping bags.

"Can we give you a lift somewhere, Patrick?" Bob asked.

"No, thank you, I only just parked up when..." He gestured to where he'd fallen against the car.

"You shouldn't be walking around in the sun after you fainted." The woman seemed about to start up again.

"No, I'm fine, never better, the office I'm going to… Only half a block away. I'll be fine, really." His voice still didn't seem like it was his, words that usually flowed so easily felt as though they were being pulled reluctantly from some hidden depth. Maybe deconstructing himself hadn't been such a good idea. _Yes it was. Craziness was leaking out round the edges anyway and I need to be truthful with this Agent Lisbon._

"No, we insist, even if it's only half a block." Patrick no longer had the resources to protest to Bob any more. He let the elderly couple drive him out of the parking garage and drop him the absurdly short distance down the street, at the pedestrian entrance to the CBI office. He spent a few seconds looking up at the building, then went in.


	11. Chapter 11

Interlude

-x-

It was early evening by the time Agent Lisbon dropped off Patrick Jane in the car park outside the CBI building in Sacramento. The young deputy who'd been in the booth earlier had been replaced by a dark-haired cop in a sergeant's uniform.

'_Come to the office in the morning, but clean yourself up. You're a mess.'_

He found two dry-cleaners before he gave up on that idea. Neither could guarantee to have his suits ready by first thing tomorrow morning. The second gave him directions to a laundromat in a strip mall a little further out from the center of town but by the time he got there most of the staff had already gone home. He had to load the washing machines himself, hoping all the while that a cold wash would be as good as dry cleaning for his suits. He left the machines to do their thing while he did a little shopping. When he returned he put everything through the spin dry machine but didn't risk the tumble dryers, instead packing the still-damp clothes into his big new canvas bag and driving a little further out of town. He found a cheap motel near I-80 and spent a few minutes turning his room into something resembling an old-fashioned New York laundry. Satisfied he could do no more cleaning up this evening he headed out again.

He'd done it! He'd goaded some volatile old-style thug of a cop until he beat him up, then the big boss had agreed to anything in return for Patrick not calling his lawyer. _Of course nothing is ever so straightforward_, he grimaced, as he delicately fingered his still-tender nose. _Senior_ Agent Lisbon had turned out to be a tough little lady cop of around thirty who didn't want him to see the Red John files. He'd eventually found out why: she thought it would be bad for him – him! – not her. She wasn't trying to cover up anything that might be in the files, wasn't being officious about rules or policies, didn't suspect him of being some kind of master criminal. She hadn't pitied him either, she would have just given in and shown him the files if it was pity. Intriguingly, her compassion-by-numbers cop routine had been covering up genuine empathy and compassion. Oh, and utterly failing to cover up her irritation, even anger at him. He didn't think he deserved that but, truth be told, he didn't know enough about cop politics to be sure. Her team were investigating some other case that wasn't Red John and the victim was the son of a judge. Maybe a pissed-off judge did have the power to cause trouble for a cop boss-lady.

Right now he needed a community primary care clinic that had too many patients and too few doctors. A part-time evening clinic run on charitable lines and staffed by a rota of volunteer doctors would be perfect and the mess he looked right at this moment would let him fit right in. If he got what he wanted he'd make some kind of donation later. The best way to find one of those was… Yes, the down-at-heel drug store he'd passed earlier. He emerged just a few minutes later with a printed list of community clinics in Sacramento. The helpful pharmacist had even highlighted the three that were open late on a Tuesday. He called the first one.

"Hi, I'm temporarily in the area and was wondering if I could have a primary care appointment this evening? Oh, OK... No, thank you. Thank you, I may call back." Hmm, he was sounding more like himself than he had all day. Nothing available this evening at the first clinic. He dialed the next one on the list.

The cop boss-lady had told him to clean himself up, hence his earlier burst of activity. Compassionate but with a brisk, no-nonsense manner, she saw and had been moved by his distress but didn't cut him any slack for it. Not a drop of pity in her body and he was grateful, her whole team apparently taking their lead from her attitude, he liked that. Then he shook his head: she imagined a simple wash and brush-up could start to fix him. Still, now he was hoping the judge didn't cause trouble for her because of him. He hadn't been trying to cause trouble for anyone. He just wanted them to finish investigating this other case and get back to hunting Red John. Their investigation into the monster had stalled, no leads, no suspects. If he could only read the files! He was sure there would be something useful he could point out to get things moving again. In his experience once there was a suspect the cops took a lot of time painstakingly gathering evidence against him. Patrick needed to be certain but he didn't need the kind of evidence that would stand up in court. There would be plenty of time to make and carry out his own plans for Red John. Once they had a viable suspect.

"Hi, I'm traveling and only in the area for today. I won't be home for a while and I was wondering if I could have a primary care appointment this evening? Great! No, I don't mind waiting... Do I need to bring anything apart from myself? OK… No, thank you, I have it here… Thank you. OK, thank you." The second clinic operated on a first come, first served basis: perfect. The place was in West Sacramento, across the river, and it opened in an hour. He'd have to wait in line but hopefully he'd come away with a prescription for proper sleeping pills without the quack trying to get him back on antidepressants, or anything else for that matter. He set off again heading west.

Now he wanted the lady cop to find Dellinger's killer, not just because it was delaying his access to the Red John files but also because of that fool of a judge. He'd looked guilty, told lies to throw suspicion elsewhere so Patrick had drawn Agent Lisbon's attention back where he thought it should be but…

But…

'_When it comes to my son it's me I'm disappointed in.'_

That had been honest and had struck Patrick to the core in his reduced state. The judge thought it was his fault that his son was dead. He hadn't pulled the trigger himself but Patrick had seen his own brand of fear and guilt showing in the man's eyes and felt deeply ashamed of himself. When the judge had taken offense he'd let the supercilious idiot take his best shot, hadn't even tried defending himself.

With his new-found honesty he also had to acknowledge the case had piqued his curiosity. It was a puzzle, a distraction that helped stop him from useless rumination while he waited to see the Red John files. There was definitely something going on with the judge. His words had tasted more like hope than fear when he claimed that one of the bad guys he'd put away must have done it. The man was genuinely afraid that his son had been killed because of him. What had he done? A puzzle inside a puzzle.

_This looks like the place. _Patrick parked up near an urban church. The sign outside the hall next door indicated the clinic wouldn't open for another half-hour but already there was a queue of people stretching out of the doors, down the steps. He ambled over, joined the back of the queue. The sun was going down and in the long shadows it felt as though the day was finally cooling a little. He nodded to the lady in front of him who was holding a baby and whose other, clearly bored kids were playing some kind of up-and-down-the-steps game in the queue. He found himself mugging away at the baby, getting a toothless smile back in return. He glanced at the harassed-looking Mom trying to keep her kids quiet and dug out a quarter from his pocket. _Can't keep a bad man down_ he thought with a wry smile as he started playing with the coin, waiting for it to catch the attention of one of the kids. Well, he wouldn't have wanted to tell the truth to the doctor anyway…

For a fleeting moment he again pictured himself in front of the mirror – yup, fully dressed once more, the sequinned jacket glittering in the shadowless light. _There you are again, my tricky friend. Patrick Jane, Showman, charlatan. I knew you couldn't stay away for long._ Patrick had felt naked and raw all afternoon, everyone he encountered bringing fresh barbed reminders of what he'd lost, how he'd lost it. Now he was feeling more himself than he had for a very long time, as though the return of the Patrick Jane persona had also brought back some other lost part of him. Maybe it was his vanity. The cop boss-lady had called him on his appearance and he'd taken her words to heart. That wasn't all of it, though. Lisbon had finally agreed he could see the police case files on Red John tomorrow; he could do a small good deed here and now in the queue; he would shortly have a prescription for real sleeping pills; and the ATM he'd spotted across the street would allow him anonymity in the good deed he had planned for afterwards. Right here, right now, for the first time in such a very long time, he felt… OK. Not bad. And that purple and gold sunset over the rooftops didn't look too shabby either. Dr. Miller had introduced him to the technique of seeking joy in the little things in life – the colors of a sunset or the taste of a freshly-made cup of tea – but it had been a mere arid intellectual exercise in distraction, for him, until now. Finally, standing here in the queue, he felt a visceral understanding of what she'd been trying to show him. He watched the colors in the sky shift subtly as the sun slowly went down and savored the anticipation of enjoying each of the four small things on his small list.

_There can only be one more big event in my life. I won't want to celebrate that act when I commit it. _

He realized he had the attention of all the kids now. The Mom was looking at him a little warily so he pictured his car and shot her a small smile.

"I can do some magic tricks for them, if you don't object? Help pass the time until the clinic opens?" She smiled in grateful acquiescence and Patrick allowed himself to enjoy the moment.


	12. Chapter 12

Interlude II

-x-

In the late afternoon light flooding through his motel window Patrick Jane smiled to himself in the motel room mirror, a genuine sexy smile that suggested infinite possibilities. He'd thought it would be only a matter of time before he had other things than his new car to bring on his trademark smiles but he hadn't anticipated so many arriving all at once. This one was inspired by his first memory of today. He'd woken that morning to the absence of his drug-induced impotence. His first thought had been 'That's a relief' and then the floodgates had opened. One ridiculous innuendo after another had sleeted through his mind, each hot on the heels of the last – it had been _hard_, his emasculation had left him feeling rather _small_, it was a _relief_ that it was over – and he'd smiled at all the ridiculous puns. When the thought 'who knew that was where I kept my funny bone' voiced itself in his head he had actually chuckled out loud, the sound at once disturbingly strange, hauntingly familiar. He didn't feel the need to do anything about it – he didn't suffer from that kind of performance anxiety – and was as pleased with the return of his sense of humor as his libido. Though less important to him now than his new vocation, having both restored was satisfying in ways that went beyond the physical. Today the cruel joke of his new purpose had seemed darkly twisted and ironic, not merely grim.

Today he'd been offered a job.

He gave himself another genuine smile, this one anticipatory, optimistic. He'd identified the killer in the Dellinger case that Senior Agent Lisbon and her team were investigating, a corrupt cop no less, and it had felt good. Murder could never have a happy ending but he'd solved the puzzle, unearthed the truth and it had been unexpectedly satisfying. Moreover he'd done it his way, devious and cunning, misdirecting the suspects and witnesses, manipulating and reading them, breaking the guilty-looking guy with words more effectively than any medieval torture device: skills he had believed he could never bear to use again. His treacherous new honesty briefly flashed across his mind an image of him closing the door on Detective Elliott. _Except in pursuit of Red John. _

Today he'd been offered a _job_.

Senior Agent Lisbon had explained his input in the Dellinger case to her boss, Director Minelli, who had offered him a job as a civilian consultant for the CBI working with the Red John team, uh, Serious Crimes Unit. Lisbon's team. He caught his eye in the mirror again and grinned, pure delight radiating from his features. He hadn't read the Red John files yet but the delay didn't matter any more. Instead here was a way not just to read them once but to have access to them whenever he wanted, access to any new Red John case if (when) he struck again, access to a whole string of cop resources he'd never dreamed of. He'd be surrounded by a team of cops whose sole purpose was to pursue the monster. Oh, OK, other killers too. He took out and re-read the job offer letter Minelli had personally given him, smiling at the specific stipulations regarding Red John that he'd made. He'd been keen and wary in equal measure, asked questions of Lisbon and Minelli looking to find the catch but try as he might he couldn't spot one _anywhere_.

Today _he'd_ been offered a job.

He hadn't accepted yet, said he'd like time to think (_Ha! As if I really need it!)_ but he was planning on heading over there first thing to accept in person. He'd thought the delay was prudent after his big mistake this morning. His grin faded. When the first batch of Red John files finally arrived from the archive he'd almost leapt over to the courier, the friendly diffidence of that morning replaced in that instant with an intense focus. It wasn't like his former fidgeting, he'd been aware of what he was doing, his overwhelming desire to read the files overriding all caution until he heard someone call his name, ask him for a favor. He would never forget the stricken expression on the face of Senior Agent Lisbon – the other cops were too embarrassed even to look at him. They all immediately understood what was going on and they were appalled by it.

_Good. It appalls me too. Coldly intending to hunt down and murder someone is appalling. It says good things about their character that those cops still have the humanity to feel appalled. _

He'd feared at that moment he'd blown his chances of ever reading the files, suspected Lisbon must be stalling, asking for his help so she could have the boxes returned to the archives in his absence. It had felt like the hardest thing he'd done all week when he agreed to help her instead of devouring the contents of the boxes there and then in one great gulp.

Then she'd asked him to do a psychic reading to spot the killer.

How could she ask something like that of him? How could he possibly do it? 'You have a gift', she'd said, 'Why not use it?' and because he had told her why – but still she didn't understand – he had trailed behind her into the room full of suspects and witnesses, feeling like a helpless dinghy dragged unwillingly along in the wake of a supertanker.

That's when the miracle happened, even though he didn't believe in them. He found he could work his old act in this new setting. For a few precious minutes in that room filled with those people in front of this little team of cops he hadn't felt guilty, or sad, or vengeful, or evil. He'd been hesitant to begin with but their reactions to his question – 'Which one of you killed Winston Dellinger?' – had kick-started something in his brain and everything else that had been so firmly on his mind just moments before suddenly became mere background noise. As soon as he got everyone at the table to return to their seats, close their eyes, pick out a card he knew he had them all in the palm of his hand. He started experiencing the seductive sensation of being the smartest guy in the room, controlling the play, and rather than feeling disgusted with himself it had felt _good_. Identifying the killer had felt _great. _When, afterwards, he'd been called into Minelli's office and had listened to the man with growing incredulity, he'd started to feel _fantastic._ Patrick threw himself into a chair, read the offer letter again. He didn't have to hide his new vocation any more. Well, maybe a little, he would hide the darkness because no-one deserved that horror in their life but him. No matter, this job meant he could pursue Red John with the help, rather than the hindrance, of the police.

Today he'd been _offered_ a _job_.

He'd never had a job before. Oh, he'd worked all his life since he was a child but nothing he'd ever done, by accident or design, had ever resulted in a job, work that could have been adequately completed by someone who wasn't Patrick Jane. Mostly he'd persuaded people, hustled them, bribed or lightly blackmailed them into letting him make money doing whatever he wanted. Occasionally he'd been forced to do work he didn't want to. His former status as 'police consultant' had been unwaged, the better to promote his image. None of these was the same as having a real job, working for wages doing something that other people did too – formerly his definition of purgatory. He had to read the letter again to take in what they wanted to pay him. He made a small calculation in his head, chuckled amiably. On those few occasions that they'd filled the show tent to capacity he'd earned more per hour thirty years ago when he was a child… He suddenly felt slightly more sympathy for the genial, venial cops he'd bribed over the years. He used to pull out a wad of notes – in the early days only the top ones were real twenties, the rest carefully-cut newsprint – and their eyes would grow big as saucers. No wonder, if this was the reward for their forty hours a week. This was perfect, the CBI obviously thought consultants were marks to pay so little but they didn't realise this time they were the mark, he would get the _police_ helping _him _in his hunt. This smile was predatory, no humor in it at all.

He needed a plan. No, first he needed to make a commitment, a promise with himself that he would keep. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. _When we are not hunting Red John, my day-to-day existence – such as it now is – belongs to the CBI. _He had nothing else to do, nowhere else to be, why not cede control of these things to the cops? It could even be restful. He had believed his new life started in hospital with the onset of his terrible new vocation but that was just his old life dressed in a dark new suit. It had died with his wife and daughter but hadn't managed to be buried with them, it was still moving around in this shell called Patrick Jane, it's shattered corpse the source and center of his quest for vengeance. It wouldn't be finished with him until Red John lay dead at his feet. No, his real new life, the tiny sliver of new life anyway, all the new life that his need for revenge would afford him, had sprung into being at the behest of Senior Agent Lisbon that afternoon with the realization that he could use his old skills for good, not evil. That was something different, separate from his hunt for Red John, something truly new.

The other cases would keep him distracted, stop him going insane if there was nothing he could do about Red John. Catching bad guys – his way – was doing something good, could even be fun. Hell, if it didn't happen spontaneously he would make it fun if he possibly could. _For the sake of my sanity I will seek joy wherever I possibly can, just as Dr. Miller advised._ At the same time, while he wouldn't use the word 'enjoy,' repeated exposure to murder victims might numb him to the sight of violent death, prepare him for the kind of slow murder he intended to commit when he found Red John.

Now for the plan. Tomorrow – Thursday – he'd accept the job offer, ask to start Monday. Then with his copy of the offer letter as a prop he was sure he could talk his way into whatever passed for a library at the CBI during this office remodelling. If he was going to do this thing he should do it properly, he would spend the rest of the day reading through their criminology, criminal psychology and criminal profiling books and anything else which cops thought useful that caught his eye. It would also give him handy access to free tea for the day, the CBI break room had much better teabags than the dusty stale offerings at his motel. Friday he'd find a better long-stay motel in a nicer neighborhood, somewhere on an easy commuter route to the CBI but not too close. He'd need to rent a little storage nearby as well, maybe also a PO box so any mail could be routed up here. Saturday he'd head down to Malibu, if he was going to be living here on a more permanent basis there were some things he wanted to have closer to hand. Sunday he'd get a haircut, do a little shopping then wash and wax his car. He certainly wasn't averse to letting other people do hard labor on his behalf but felt this first time, after the long drive to Malibu and back, it had to be him cleaning and polishing his beautiful blue goddess.


	13. Chapter 13

Epilogue

-x-

On his first day as a civilian consultant for the CBI Patrick Jane spent the whole day downstairs with Human Resources. He'd been photographed, finger printed, DNA sampled, form-filled and computerized in various ways. He'd been given a psychological evaluation, surprised to learn the CBI had a full-time psychological counsellor and delighted that this week he was on compassionate leave, his place being filled by a different locum every day. Dr Louisa Mee had turned out to be a well-dressed psychologist in her early forties who had a terrible weakness for beautiful besuited blond men who smiled at her so dazzlingly and were apparently so well-adjusted, so open and honest about their feelings.

There was a wealth of very basic training courses that he had to attend before he was even permitted to ride the elevator up to the Serious Crimes Unit as an employee rather than a visitor. These were followed in short order by training on various protocols, from emergency procedures to inter-agency cooperation, followed after lunch by the computer software courses and finally the induction training that all new CBI employees had to endure. The highlight of the day had been when he persuaded one instructor to dig out a polygraph machine that was lurking in the corner of her training room then volunteered to take the test. Sadly it turned out the machine was faulty, they hadn't even been able to calibrate it...

Nearly the whole time when he hadn't been smiling he'd been grinning. He couldn't help himself. Rather than bothering to remember any of the training he'd spent his time daydreaming, speculating about what he might discover that they'd missed about Red John. He'd also amused himself seeing how long it took to raise a chuckle from each new member of staff that he met. He'd achieved a 100% success rate, while his fastest time was forty-three seconds after meeting one of them for the first time. Even being trained how to use the office coffee machines hadn't dampened his high spirits.

He laid on a serious charm offensive, making friends with the gals in HR, none of them under forty-five, and the men from IT, none of them over twenty-two. He'd listened to as much gossip as he could then pushed for a little more. He learned a surprising amount about Minelli, less about Lisbon though that did include news of Hannnigan's transfer out of her team. They'd been impressed by his reaction: nice Mr. Jane had looked genuinely concerned, said he was sorry to have caused trouble for anyone. He had apparently paid no attention at all to where the files for his team members were held in HR – standard filing cabinet locks – and looked away exaggeratedly when they typed in their passwords. The locks on the office doors were a variant he hadn't seen before, but that didn't matter because the lock on the key safe out near the reception desk wouldn't take him more than a few seconds and the only key it didn't appear to contain was the spare to the little safe behind the seascape in Minelli's office. Rather than being frustrated by the delays he'd found his first day interesting, amusing, instructive (though not in the way his instructors would have hoped) and bizarre, his first introduction to the kind of bureaucracy for which he was already developing creative avoidance strategies.

Now he was really here it was his job to treat the Red John files as a marathon not a sprint, any urgency he'd formerly felt replaced by a determination to be thorough. He was inexpressibly grateful to Senior Agent Lisbon for being the catalyst that had brought it all about. When he finally stepped out of the elevator into the Serious Crimes Unit at the end of the working day he even gave her a big hug. Yes he was genuinely grateful but he also wanted to confirm her reaction. He expected she would be uncomfortable, not because she found him attractive (though he suspected she might do) but because she didn't think it appropriate for colleagues to demonstrate feelings in the workplace like that. He was right, definitely not the hugging type. She led him to a store room full of the files and discretely left him there, a nice touch. If there was going to be a repeat of the scene when the files first arrived no-one would have to witness it.

Tonight he would read and start to memorise the files; after the first read-through he'd find out how empty the CBI building was overnight, exploring the layout of the building and the contents of its storage rooms; and maybe finally spend a few minutes back down in HR, getting the skinny on Lisbon, Cho and Rigsby – Minelli if he was fooling enough to allow them to keep his records there.

Patrick took the lid off the nearest box, pulled out a handful of manilla files, leaned back on an upended old couch propped in the corner of the room, and started reading.

\- Finis -


End file.
